


A Lady's Work

by LittleMissPixieStix



Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Death, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-31
Updated: 2016-01-31
Packaged: 2018-05-17 07:59:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5860681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleMissPixieStix/pseuds/LittleMissPixieStix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just a day in the life of Miss Pauling.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Lady's Work

**Author's Note:**

> You can find this fic on Tumblr here: http://littlemissfemscout.tumblr.com/post/133235425247/a-ladys-work  
> Likes and reblogs are appreciated, but by no means required. =)

One job.  Those guys had had _one job_.  Kill ten enemies and grab the briefcase. Was that really so hard?

Well, technically, that had been _two_ jobs.  Maybe that’s why the RED team had left so many people alive, because grabbing the briefcase was the _one_ job they had decided to do.  

Leaving over half of the witnesses alive was just a consequence of that _one_ job well done.

One out of two jobs completed wasn’t that bad.  The problem was that they had left six witnesses alive.   _Six._ That meant that there six people that she had to go in and deal with.

Today was just supposed to have been an easy day of doing some paperwork and burying some bodies that she didn’t get to the night before before she started to look over that gun show catalog she had just gotten.  

So much for that.  

She parked her scooter out of sight, behind a fence.  As the engine made a horrible sputtering noise, she reminded herself that next time she was reviewing the boys’ base, she should probably run that by Engineer.  He’d probably be able to help her fix it. 

Later.  Right now, work.  

She started carefully creeping up towards the back of the building.  There were six men in there she had to fight.  Man, she was happy to have an easy day.  Last time, she had to fight ten.

How the boys’ had missed nearly  _everyone,_ she didn’t know.  If her life was perfect, she’d never have to deal with something like that again.

There should be a movie of her life.  She had a cool enough life for it to be made into a movie.  She’d have the best theme song too, it would be so awesome and it would put James Bond’s theme to shame.  

Except if people knew what she did for a living, she’d probably be in jail.  

Yeah, that movie wasn’t coming anytime soon

Humming an awesome theme song to herself, one she’d have to see if she should get Demo or Sniper, or maybe even Medic to help her refine later, she started to pick the lock on the door.  The minute she touched the door, it fell off of its hinges.

At least the boys had some damage while they were here.  The chaos would make it easier for her to move around and do some dirty work. 

And by dirty, she meant deadly.  Because she was going to kill people.  Lots of people.  Because she was a badass chick.  Lady, she was a lady.  Scout called her a chick.   She was a lady.

A lady who killed people, but a lady nevertheless.  A lady who didn’t start fights, but she damn well did finish them.

Speaking of fights, she heard the sound of someone walking down the nearby hallway.  Speeding up her pace, she crouched behind a crate, just peeking out enough to see one of her targets saunter by.

One set of footsteps.  There was an echo, it was a large metal hallway, but there was only one person.  This was going to be so easy.  How should she do it?

She had a knife, just as a precaution, but going as the rogue wasn’t really her style.  She preferred going as a sorceress, but now she was going to go as her favorite role; the dungeon master.

And right now, this dungeon master was about to get the story, and some heads, rolling.

Sneaking up behind the enemy, she picked up a shovel, probably one that Soldier had dropped.  The guys were supposed to keep a hold of their weapons, so that Mann Co. wasn’t tied in to any of their botched jobs.

Now that she thought about it, having the words “Mann Co.” stamped on to all of the weapons probably wasn’t the smartest move if they were trying to keep themselves distant from all of this.  That seemed like a very poor idea now that she thought about it.  She’d have to talk with someone about that when she got back.

The man in front of her was unaware of the tiny lady creeping up behind him.  She put Spies to shame, being so sneaky like this.  The man paused, peering in a doorway make sure there was no one about to jump out of the room and attack him.  That made it so much easier for Miss Pauling to jump behind and kill him, starting with a hard crack to his head with the shovel.  He fell, and she dragged him into the empty room so she could finish the job.

She could cut him up into a  bunch of small pieces and hide him, but that would mean she’d have to _find_ them all later.  It was so much easier to just hide his body in the closet here.  She always checked the closets when she went back through, to see if she had missed any bodies, so it was probably the best action to take for now.

Hoisting his huge limp form up, she was in the middle of stuffing him into the closet when there was a beeping from his belt.  Was he being contacted?  Now?  That was bad.  That was very very bad.

If he didn’t answer, then they’d figure out that something happened to him, and their guard would be higher.  At least as higher as it could get after a group of moronic mercenaries burst in and caused havoc.  So that begged the question of how much higher their guard _could_ get…

But she didn’t want to find out.  She yanked his radio off of his belt as she gave one last shove, forcing the body into the closet, and got ready to answer.

“ _Johnson!”_ the voice on the other end barked, “ _How are things looking on your end?”_

_“Um…Everything’s under control, situation normal”_ She replied, trying to make her voice go as low as it could, “ _Uh… everything’s perfectly all right now. Fine. All fine here now, thank you… How are you?”_

The voice on the other end paused, and Pauling was mentally slapping herself for that last line.  What had she been thinking, asking that?  

“ _What’s your location?”_

Instead of answering, because he didn’t deserve a decent answer, Pauling shot the radio.  She didn’t have time to regret the action, she had to move.

She peered out into the hallway, and then jogged down it, stopping as she reached the corner.  It was a good thing she stopped too, because this was the path the backup was taking to get to “her location”.  

What could she say.  The targets were coming right to her.  It made her job that much easier.

Waiting for the fools to come rushing in, she popped two caps into the witnesses heads as soon as they were around the corner, killing them on the spot.  Since her to-do hit list was now halved, being subtle was no longer her priority. 

Finishing the job and getting out of here alive was.  The sooner she could, the better.

She headed down to the buildings headquarters, keeping a look out for the last three witnesses.

It was easy to find them, the three of them had found each other, and were getting geared up to go find her and try to take her out.  Little did they know that the little lady was hiding right outside the in the hall.  They would know soon, though, because as soon as they were armed, they were heading out.  

If only she had Heavy to send in with Sasha.  The guys wouldn’t even know what hit them when they were ripped into a million tiny pieces by a hail of bullets.  A quick, but not painless, way to go.  God, she loved efficiency like that.

Unfortunately, Heavy hadn’t been sent on this mission. If he had been, then those guys would probably have ripped into a million tiny pieces.  And they weren’t.

Maybe if she promised the guys new guns they’d actually do the mission right one day, and she wouldn’t be sent to clean up after them.  

That would be something she’d have to ponder later, because right now she was still cleaning up the last three large dust bunnies in this room.

Bunnies?  Now she was thinking like Pyro.  What would Pyro do in this situation?

They’d probably try to pat these guys on the head with their axe.  Probably not the best idea right here, though that had worked with the first guy.  She’d have to give Pyro points for that.

The muffled talking taking place in the room reminded her that she had a job to do, and it was probably a bad idea to wait and let them gear up.

She took a few deep breaths, making sure that her gun was fully loaded, and then readied herself to go.  Peering into the doorway, she noted each of her targets locations, and got ready to roll.  

Her move; let’s hope its not her last.

Stepping into the room, she has the advantage that the three men are focused on some monitors, looking for her.  At least, she has the advantage until they switch to the hallway feed and see her in the doorway.  

Well, two of them saw her, she shot one as he turned around.  So he didn’t, because he was dead before he hit the floor.

Moving quickly, she took one more down as she took cover behind a desk.  Desk thing.  It didn’t look like a normal desk, it was made entirely of metal and it might have had some buttons on top.  It had papers on it too, so she decided it was a desk.  

If it bugged her that much, not calling it the technical name, she’d take a closer look at it after she killed this guy.  Sticking her head up now seemed like a bad idea.

Some shots the thug fired turned the wall Swiss, creating a colony of holes a family of termites would be jealous of.  That was assuming they liked holes that looked like they had been drilled by a woodpecker on sugar high, then they’d be jealous.  Otherwise, they probably were just concerned.

Could woodpeckers get sugar highs?  She’d have to ask Medic later.

The footsteps were getting louder again, she’d have to move fast if she didn’t want to get pinned back here and get a massage job with a semi-automatic.  It would probably feel worse than getting a Swedish massage. Probably.

Man, she needed to take a spa day and get a massage.  That would be something she tried to squeeze in on her next day off.  Sometime between the gun shopping and tea time.  Yeah, that sounded good, she’d have to pencil that in.

Whirling around, she took a shot of faith and fired a quick one, not taking the time to line it up.  If she had taken the time, she probably would have ended up with a massive headache.  

Whether or not the shot hit, she didn’t get to see.  She ducked back down behind the desk-thing and got ready to fire again.

At least she was ready until she heard a large thump and realized that the footsteps had stopped.  Was he dead?

She carefully peeked out to the side.  

Yes.  

Yes, he was very very dead.  

Oh God, was that in his eye?  Had she managed to shoot him in the eye?

Of all the time to roll a critical hit, this was one of the _best._

She’d have to brag about that to Soldier later.  Probably best not to do that with Demoman around; he probably didn’t like stories that involved people losing eyes.

Medic would.  He’d love it.   She might tell him too.

Later.  Right now, she had to finish cleaning this place up, and that meant another night of burying the bodies.  

She should really have a movie made about her, ‘cause she was pretty awesome.  Especially with how she dealt with all -

 …one, two

\- Six. With all _six_ of those thugs.  Especially that first guy, because it had been one strong hit and - oh.

There was a body in the closet, she’d have to remember that too. Couldn’t leave him laying around, unburied, decaying and stinking the place up.  Yeah, that probably wouldn’t fly.  She’d have to do a sweep of this place twice to make sure everything was done right like it should have been the first time.

Behind every great team, every great man, there’s a woman wiping their asses.

She hoisted the fetched-shovel from the hall, and started heading outside, walking down the hall with confidence.  She was now officially the scariest thing in the building, little ol’ her, how could she not be proud of that? 

 Six new graves needed to be built tonight.  Or maybe just one big one.  That could work, especially if she chopped some people up first.  One big one sounded good.  

It was a shame she hadn’t brought Scout with her.  He could be digging while she was cutting people into smaller pieces.  He never seemed to like the chopping part, but the boy could dig a darn good hole.  

Of course, he was one of the people who had left behind _six_ witnesses, so there was a good chance she would have buried him in the hole.  

Maybe it was a good thing he hadn’t tagged along tonight.

That meant she had to do all of the digging though.  Her shovel cracked the earth, and she started the beginning of what was going to be a very long night, a fact she was resigned to.

With boys like that to clean up after, she was always busy, but she’d be lying if she said that she didn’t enjoy it at least a little bit, as crazy as her life was.  

In fact, her life reminded her of that saying, that perfect saying, that the Administrator had taught her awhile ago.  Those words were really powerful, in an admittedly strange, but accurate sort of way.  Pauling rolled those words, that phrase, around in her head as she dug deeper and deeper:

_A lady’s work is never done, but it’s far easier, and faster, if you use a gun._


End file.
